Prevent Spread of Bacteria
Essential oils have been proven to kill and prevent the spread of bacteria…all without developing resistance or super-bugs, and without the down-side of toxicity to the liver.
Research has shown that many essential oils have the ability to immobilize pathogenic (harmful) bacteria by destroying the viability of bacteria cell membranes, resulting in germ death or sterility. This process occurs in a surprising way with essential oils, because—to a surprising degree—they exhibit the ability to differentiate between pathogenic bacteria and beneficial bacteria. This simple difference between essential oils and pharmaceutical drugs eliminates the bulk of negative side effects when using essential oils. Dr. Jean Valnet, MD, one of the earlier pioneers of essential oil medicine in France, put it this way: “Essential oils are especially valuable as antiseptics because their aggression towards microbial germs is matched by their total harmlessness to tissue—one of the chief defects of chemical antiseptics in that they are likely to be as harmful to the cells of the organism as to the cause of the disease.”
The antibacterial abilities of essential oils have been explored since the time of the Great Plague in Europe in the 1300s when 25 million people died. Among those who seemed to survive that pandemic were spice traders and perfumers, who spent their days harvesting, processing and distilling aromatic herbs of various sorts. Today, there are scores of studies documenting the powerful antibacterial properties of essential oils, particularly the spice oils (Clove, Cinnamon, Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary, etc.) More recent research has documented that the ability of essential oils to kill bacteria is potentially even stronger than that of modern antibiotics in fighting the two most common disease bacteria, E. coli and Staph (See chart below).
In the chart, ‘Loading Amount’ is a measure of the amount or concentration (in microliters) of the substance applied to a Petri dish containing the colonized bacteria. The ‘zone of inhibition’ amounts under the two families of bacteria indicates the diameter (in centimeters) of the area in which the substance killed or inhibited growth in the respective bacterial colony. As can be seen, the zones of inhibition for the essential oils of Cinnamon and Oregano are actually larger than those for Penicillin and Ampicillin: *
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